The start of a new year is a time to take stock, a time to make plans, and a time to get your life in better order—and you can, if you like, extend that to the home screens that appear whenever you unlock your smartphone. You’re most likely going to be spending a lot of time staring at these home screens as you navigate between apps and widgets. The better organized they are, the quicker you can get stuff done.
The more apps you have installed, the more unruly and sprawling your home screens are likely to become, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Both Android and iOS come with features you can use to help bring some order to the chaos. Put aside a few minutes for the job and you’ll soon have your home screens in better shape.
Android
Different Android phone manufacturers take different approaches to home screen management, but some tricks work the same on almost all phones. For example, try dragging one app shortcut on top of another on the home screen: A new folder is created that you can drag more apps into. Tap on a folder to open it and rename it, and drag all the shortcuts out of a folder to delete it.
You can make more room for your app icons by creating more home screens—just press and hold an app icon, drag it to the far right of the screen, and a new home screen will appear–like a new, swipeable page. There’s a balance to be struck between having home screens that are too cluttered and having too many home screens, but you’ve got that flexibility.
On Pixel phones, tap and hold on a blank area of a home screen, then choose Home settings to make further changes. The next page lets you turn off the default behavior of adding home screen shortcuts for every app you install (for a more streamlined home screen). You can also tap Suggestions to have your phone create a bottom row of shortcuts on the first home screen,…
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